Chandigarh (Punjab) [India], September 13 : Former cricketer Yograj Singh doesn't see any real contest between India and Pakistan ahead of their upcoming fixture at the Asia Cup in Dubai on Sunday. According to him, Pakistan doesn't possess the necessary firepower to compete against India, even though the Men in Green recently engineered a win in the final of the T20I Tri-Series against Afghanistan.
India will march into the Dubai International Stadium as the clear favourite to take down Pakistan, who continue to rue the performances of their misfiring batters. According to Yograj, the chasm that exists between the two sides stems from the introduction of the Indian Premier League, which has elevated the status of Indian cricketers. He even used a metaphor to highlight the void between the two sides.
"As far as Pakistan is concerned, what will it do? It cannot compete with India. Since the IPL came to India, Indian players have become very big. Why? To get money. There is money here. It is a good thing. There should be money. Why not? Players should get money. Where there is money, there is prosperity," Yograj said while speaking to ANI.
"There is no match between Pakistan and India. It is not possible. Because the platform they play on is clay. And the sky is where we play cricket. The sky and the ground have never met. It is not possible," he added.
While assessing the current predicament of cricket across the border, Yograj doesn't see the Pakistan team walking on the path of progress, unless they switch their mentality to the one that aligns with their former 1992 World Cup-winning captain, Imran Khan.
"I think Pakistan should develop its own team and its own people. Just like we think about our players, Pakistan should also think about them. Imran Khan brought players who were struggling with poverty and backed them to play. That is why they won the World Cup. They need a thought process like Imran Khan," he said.
India squad for Asia Cup: Suryakumar Yadav (C), Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma, Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Sanju Samson, Harshit Rana, Rinku Singh.
Pakistan squad for Asia Cup: Salman Ali Agha (C), Abrar Ahmed, Faheem Ashraf, Fakhar Zaman, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Hasan Nawaz, Hussain Talat, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Haris, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Waseem Jnr, Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Mirza, Shaheen Afridi, Sufyan Moqim.
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